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Decision making and $$$ signs

You know, one of my streams of income left a few days ago and I was somewhat pissed, initially. I had a goal that I wanted to reach in a few months and without the help of that income, reaching it became that much more of a challenge.

I’m not here to complain though, that is definitely not how it works. Those who complain aren’t seeking a way to remedy the situation, they are just trying to find someone who is willing to listen to them whine about it. They want to vent.

That’s usually not me, at least not in this case (I like to talk from time to time because it helps me think.)

Anyway, I was getting a bit off-track there.

The thing that really made me start to think is the way I started to behave when that stream of income was no more. I was livid.

My mind started racing and I immediately started wondering what I would/could do in order to replace it. I was on the edge of making decisions that were not so shy of being incompatible with my vision.

The only thing that was on my mind was the money and how I would get it.

*While money is fine and dandy, (like many people have told me in the past) it isn’t the best thing to use as motivation.

I’d completely lost sight of my goal. I lost sight of the reason why I wanted the money in the first place(it wasn’t just so that I could have it.)

If you only want the money, here’s what you could do

If I only wanted the money, I could literally just find a full-time job somewhere. It isn’t about the money. (or at least, not only about the money). It’s about being able to do the things that I want to do.

No one wants to get stuck doing something that they hadn’t intended to be stuck doing. That’s one of my greatest fears and also something that I’ve been fighting for an extremely long time.

It’s the reason why I write and, is the reason why I’ve decided to take a minute to reflect and figure out my next move.

The time that I’ve had to reflect has shown me two things.

When you place deadlines on success(or at least when I do it) you place less stringent criteria on plausible ideas.

I realized this when I had a conversation with one of my roommates. We were up talking one day and he mentioned the casino to me. He talked about how he hit(made money) while he was there and how he felt that it was his night. The thing that stood out to me about this conversation was his reasoning for why he’d hit. He said that he was there by himself that night. He had nothing there to rush him and felt as if he could pick his spots carefully. (When he has someone with him he feels the need to rush through each and every one of his moves in an effort to make money before they leave. From what I was told, these are the moments in which he generally loses money.) This actually leads me into my next realization.

When you feel forced to do anything, you end up making a decision before the time has come for the decision to be made.

Every time that I’ve lost money trading it’s been because I’ve rushed a decision. As soon as my roommate said what he said, I made the connection to my trading decisions and entrepreneurship in general. The times that I’ve made money(and this may be because of my hubris), the decision felt perfect. Any time that I’ve done anything enjoyable or worthwhile, the decision that I made that led to that activity fell right into place. There was no pressure to make that decision; it just came to me.

Conclusion

Money is nice but isn’t all that there is to life, at least not for me. The key is finding that extra little thing that you’re willing to do for extended periods of time. How do you find that one little thing that you’re willing to do for an extended period of time?

Read this to answer that question.

*don’t forget that money is incredibly important though. It allows us to fuel our endeavors.